WEST DEPTFORD TWP.— After nearly 20 years, one woman’s memory of waking up to a stranger standing over her bed may never have lost its terror.

Let alone the ordeal she and police said followed that.

The woman was 32 years old, a resident in the Heather Ridge apartment complex, back on May 18, 1992.

In the pre-dawn hours, police said, the man she saw sexually assaulted her, having entered the apartment through a bedroom window.

Detectives took DNA evidence from the scene. But back then, the means to prosecute weren’t quite there.

Recently, a detective happened upon the file from the elusive case, township Police Chief Craig Mangano said. And after a roughly seven-month investigation and another crack at DNA, police say they have their man.

Thornton was charged with aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault during a burglary and sexual assault by physical force or coercion.

He was committed to Gloucester County Jail in default of $225,000 full cash bail. The case goes next to a grand jury for possible indictment, Mangano said.

This past September, he said, West Deptford Detective Cpl. Anna Connelly was working in the station’s evidence room when she found the old file.

She passed it on to fellow Detective Cpl. Michael Cramer, who began a new investigation, Mangano said.

“I credit (Cramer’s) aggressive police work,” Mangano explained. “He knew it couldn’t be solved back then. There are many cases we’re able to solve now because of DNA evidence.”

Cramer, for his part, was able to compare such evidence gathered by the detectives who worked the case in 1992 to DNA samples in the state police CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database.

But he needed to get another DNA sample - by way of a mouth swab - directly from the suspect. That, too, needed to be compared.

Thornton, however, went to an aunt’s home in Ambler, Pa., Mangano said. Police were able to track him down and get the new swab from him.

Cramer said results from the state police lab confirmed the new swab matched the original DNA evidence.

Police approached the Brookfield Drive home in Deptford in which the suspect was later staying. Cramer went along with West Deptford Inv. Richard Henry, Deptford Officer Adam Ziegler and others.

But Thornton ran out the back, to a nearby home, and he put up a fight, Cramer said. Officers eventually subdued him, and he was additionally charged with aggravated assault on police and resisting arrest.

Thornton was taken back to West Deptford, where he confessed, Mangano said, further alleging that Thornton admitted he was under the influence of drugs when he assaulted the victim.

Although updated forensics helped close the case, he and Cramer explained, thorough work by detectives two decades ago was also vital.

“The investigators back then did a very good job,” Cramer said. “They did everything they could.”

“What they did helped Detective Cpl. Cramer do this job,” Mangano added.